Free music software round-up: Week 101

Christmas gifts you don't have to put on your credit card

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Four pre-Christmas treats for you this week, including a seasonally-appropriate wind instrument, a vintage synth emulation, a peak meter and a retro organ. We'll see you for more gratis goodness in 2012.

Tek'it Audio RECsoprano

We're in the season of school Christmas concerts, so what better time to release a free soprano recorder plug-in? This one has an envelope control, a selection of tuning options, portamento and is polyphonic, which should make it sound all the sweeter.

Pianovintage JEM SX1000

The JEN SX-1000 was an Italian monosynth that was released in the '70s; this is a software emulation. It looks pretty easy to program, though you can save yourself the bother by making use of the 30 presets, six of which emulate those that came with the original instrument.

Starplugs Peak Meter

A Christmas present from Starplugs (note the Santa hat on the logo), this peak meter promises to offer a superfast peak display, peak-hold bargraph and numerical peak-hold. It's the kind of gift that's still going to be useful long after the last mince pie has been eaten and the tree has come down.

Martinic Combo Model F

Yet another organ emulation arrives to flex its drawbars: this one looks similar to many others (it's based on a famous combo instrument from the '60s), but we should point out that it's modelled rather than sample-based.